Professor wins $10,000 prize March 5, 2012

"I Ate One and Then Ate Two More," 40" x 52" Ink, Acrylic and Colored Pencil on Paper 2011

Anne Pearce, M.F.A., has 10,000 new reasons to celebrate.

Recently, the assistant professor of art at Rockhurst University and director of the Greenlease Gallery, found out she was one of three winners for this year’s Charlotte Street Foundation’s annual visual artistaward, which comes with prestige and a $10,000 prize.

“Winning this is a huge honor,” Pearce said. “I was really happy for my work to be seen by the external jurors. In terms of exposure, the opportunity to have my work seen by members of the local and national art community was really important to me.”

Pearce, who has had a selection of work currently on display at the Bertrand Delacroix Gallery in New York, said this was the first year that she had decided to enter her work into the competition. She submitted 10 pieces from her “Passport: Double Portraits” series. Pearce describe the series as a series of portraits of people that she knows that tries to capture their public and private personalities.

After the field of potential candidates was narrowed down to 10, a group of panelists came to do a studio visit on Feb. 20. She was teaching a class when David Hughes, the foundation’s director, called telling her she had won.

Pearce wants to use this award to further her craft and expanding a new large-scale series of paintings she is working on.